These days, everything floats
by Skowronek
Summary: Now, Sherlock is still and tense but he accepts the fact that he must be patient. He stores every sound he hears in his Mind Palace even though these days, everything floats, so he is no longer able to gauge what is real and what is unreal. There is no line dividing these two states. There is no distinction. Most importantly, there is no John.


**I do not own Sherlock.**

At this point, it is all just a blur.

Sherlock thinks that he recalls the moment he first noticed this sensation. He is not sure, though; it used to scare him, not being able to distinguish the reality from the fantasy. Now he can't even be afraid. Maybe it is better that way, he thinks. Maybe he can create his own reality. Maybe he can bring his lost reality back.

Still, there are rare moments when he remembers how it is to feel the fear. It doesn't mean he does feel it – he remembers, he has the access to the memories, and it's almost tangible. It triggers the doubt – yet another reason to stay awake at night. If he can't rely on his memory, on his mind, is there anything he can trust? Is there anyone?

Sherlock knew the answer – once. He knew it three weeks, two days, thirteen hours, forty-two minutes and nine seconds ago.

Well, yes, eleven seconds ago now.

It reassures him a bit that he still hasn't lost count. Then again, he doubts. These days, there is nothing he can know for certain.

'My name is Sherlock Holmes', he speaks inside his mind and his voice resonates outside, in the non-mind world, even though he has yet to open his mouth. 'I'm 36-year-old. Right-handed', he goes on, reminding himself of his weight, his eye-colour, his pulse, his blood type, listing down his glucose level. He counts how many times per minute he usually breathes – fifteen, average resting respiratory rate. Conclusion: probably, Sherlock Holmes is alive. The familiar, long-lost shade of boredom floats and goes away before Sherlock can reach out and catch it.

He adds _probably _because these days, he cannot be sure.

He does think he remembers the first time he has noticed that something has gone wrong. It was half past eleven, he was lying on the sofa, and the faint unmistakable aroma of the freshly brewed tea was floating all over the flat.

He knew it was impossible. He never prepared tea. He got up and strided to the kitchen.

No tea. The sent was stronger, though, and painfully welcoming.

Reminding.

Sherlock spotted an empty RAMC mug on the table. He did not leave the kitchen for three hours, six minutes and forty-for seconds.

Now the scent accompanies him everywhere. It follows him constantly, a cruel reminder, a bodiless comforter. Sherlock assumes it could be real. Surely, there might be a tea mug he has missed. He cannot know.

He also supposes that the single gunshot he once heard at midnight could be something more than a mischief of his traitorous mind. He searches the flat frantically and even wakes Mrs. Hudson to take a look at her flat, but there is no trace of the bullet.

Sometimes, if he is focused enough, he can hear a subtle, insistent sound of somebody steadily typing on a laptop. Every single time, he hurries to the living room only to find it dark and empty like Sherlock's mind. The laptop always waits patiently on the table.

Sherlock never uses it.

He is half-aware that Mycroft keeps visiting and Mrs. Hudson rarely leaves 221B because she is worried he might _do something_ in her absence. He takes to playing his violin and ignoring them both until Mycroft gives in and goes away. Music is floating, D major blue like the ocean or like the irises which Sherlock memorised a lifetime ago and keeps safely hidden in his Mind Palace's treasure room.

It could be someone other than Mycroft, though. Perhaps Lestrade or Molly. Sherlock cannot be sure. At this point, all is blurry like a dust storm and he doesn't care.

A week later, he starts hearing a voice. It is always the same one, warm, patient, amazing. It tells him stories – fairy-tales, some well-known, some made up on the spot. Sometimes it reminds Sherlock to get milk or eat breakfast. It speaks randomly, without any warning, and Sherlock finds himself anticipating the moment he will listen to it again. He has been trying to calculate the possible intervals, but he needs more data, so finally, he gives up this pointless activity.

Not that his whole existence is not pointless, Sherlock thinks in the shaking jelly of his mind, but he never says that aloud. Mycroft might come and take him somewhere else, and Sherlock knows that it is vital for him to stay here. He must wait for John.

There are occasions when he responds to the voice, encourages the conversation, anxious to listen more, to be consumed by vowels and consonants, and the familiar Hertz of the pitch. The voice never answers; Sherlock suspects it's not because the voice enjoys teasing him. It's because it cannot hear him.

Now, Sherlock is still and tense but he accepts the fact that he must be patient. He stores every sound he hears in his Mind Palace even though these days, everything floats, so he is no longer able to gauge what is real and what is unreal. There is no line dividing these two states. There is no distinction.

Most importantly, there is no John.

Sherlock tries to convince himself that this is just a trick. Maybe he has been drugged – although his reasoning indicates otherwise. It would explain the hallucinations, though, so he does not dismiss the idea. He needs to take everything into account.

Still, there is a certain problem: he cannot even be sure if these _are_ hallucinations. And if they are – what is real? Can he distinguish the outside world from the one created by his mind?

Sometimes, when it slowly becomes unbearable, Sherlock pretends that he is just trapped inside his Palace, a very disorganized one. He knows that is not the case – he can still visit the real one, as if nothing has ever happened, and there is no second hidden palace in his head.

Not that Sherlock would mind.

A reckless thirty-two-year-old blond myopic idiot of a Volvo driver killed John Watson. Sherlock Holmes, however, is going to be killed by the reality.

He can – or at least he thinks so – vividly recollect this afternoon three weeks ago. He was conducting an experiment for a case; a dull one, but he had to check the soil on the suspect's shoes nonetheless. Molly Hooper, thankfully, had left him alone, stuttering and blushing, and Sherlock was quickly getting bored. The case had appeared to be promising but now it turned out to be merely a four. And to cap it all, there was no John.

Sherlock was sure he would find the case tolerable if John accompanied him. Even though the doctor seldom offered his input, on the rare occasions when he did, he either got it right or provided Sherlock with an idea inspirational enough to help solve the case easily. Feeling restless, Sherlock sent a text.

_Morgue. Experimenting. Can you come? SH_

John surely must have finished his shift by now, Sherlock mused. He doubted the man would have something more exciting to do.

_Half an hour. See you there :) JW_

Sherlock affectionately rolled his eyes at the ridiculous use of the emoticon. Of course John was happy to come here, Sherlock knew it; he did not need a confirmation and he certainly hated repetitions. This was John, though. Sherlock let it pass.

He returned to his microscope, interrupted only once – by Molly and her infelicitous attempt at asking him out. Sherlock mentally sighed. He had assumed it was apparent that he was not interested but plainly, he was mistaken.

That, or Molly was being oblivious. A far more probable reason. It took Sherlock for minutes and thirty-two seconds to assure Molly that while he was acquainted with human mating rituals, he was not necessarily in need of participating in one.

That was also the moment in which the case suddenly became much more fascinating and it consumed him for more than twenty minutes. Sherlock started getting impatient. John surely should arrive soon.

Two more minutes later Sherlock solved the case. It was painfully dull, almost like Mycroft's fashion sense. He was going to summarise it for John in a captivating way, of course. Sherlock didn't want John to be as bored as he was.

_Where are you? SH_, he texted quickly.

_Cab. Getting there JW_, John wrote back after fifty-seven seconds.

Sherlock frowned. Obviously John was becoming impatient, if his punctuation was telling anything.

_I'm bored. Be here soon. SH_, Sherlock complained in answer.

He wondered absently if it was worth going and checking with Molly if she had some fresh cadavers. Sherlock wouldn't mind taking a look at one. It was always something to occupy himself with while he was waiting for John to arrive.

No, he dismissed the idea quickly. Too tedious.

_You're running late. SH_, he typed instead and sent the message with a scowl. Probably the traffic, he assumed, or maybe John bumped into Stamford on his way to the lab.

_Three minutes and twenty-two seconds late. SH_

He sighed. How utterly tiresome.

Sherlock got up and decided to bother Molly after all, texting on his way.

_Where are you? Come to the lab. SH_

_John, you're being ridiculous. SH_

_Almost ten minutes late. SH_

_Why are you not answering? SH_

Molly didn't let him in. Sherlock shrugged. She had never been so uncontrollable before.

_John? SH_

Eleven minutes and forty-three seconds.

Sherlock hacked into the hospital database – Molly's password, KiTteN, was disappointingly predictable – to see what the pathologist was working on.

John was seventeen minutes and twenty-one seconds late and Sherlock found nothing worthy of his attention in the database. Sighing, he texted Lestrade asking if there was a new case.

John was twenty-eight minutes and forty seconds late and Lestrade had yet to text back when Sherlock heard the familiar sound of footsteps followed by quickly, sharp-heeled steps at regular intervals. A female.

He scowled.

'What are you doing here? Exercising?', Sherlock sneered the moment the door opened, not looking up from his phone.

Mycroft entered the lab alone, leaving his name-confused PA in the corridor.

'This is not the time for your pitiable resentments, Sherlock', he answered.

Surprised at the tone – grave, tired, annoyed, defeated, but laced with something more, something else – worry? Sadness? It sounded alarmingly akin to compassion but emotions were not Sherlock's area. He needed John. John would know.

_Why are you not here? Mycroft's annoying me. Bring cake. SH_

Twenty-nine minutes and fifty-two seconds. Sherlock finally looked up, noticing that Mycroft seemed to be struggling with words. Unusual, that.

'I have come here to tell you', Mycroft started, sounding as awfully pompous as always and Sherlock wished his brother let him be, just once, but no, he had to interrupt everything, _always_. He was meddling. Constantly.

'I have come here to tell you', Mycroft repeated with noticeable difficulty, 'about an accident'.

Probably some boring old official had fallen off his chair. Sherlock fiddled with his phone impatiently, pretending not to listen. Maybe if Mycroft realized that Sherlock was not interested in anything he had to say, he would go away. He gets up and reaches for the Petri dish he left on the other side of the table, wondering if Mycroft was quick enough to duck if Sherlock threw it at him.

'Sherlock... John is dead'.

At these words, everything floats. Sherlock thinks the floor drifts away, like a slow but insistent caterpillar track. Mycroft's words echo in his mind, attacking him, and he falls, falls in the abyss. He closes his eyes, reaching out to grab the table and steady himself, and when he opens them, Mycroft places his pale hand on Sherlock's trembling one. A tiny part of Sherlock's mind, the one which seems to be still working and thinking and analysing, ponders whether John's left hand was supposed to have a similar tremor. He cannot know for certain; he remembers both of John's hands to be always perfectly steady.

For the first time, Sherlock couldn't tell how much time had passed. Mycroft's hand was still there, strangely substantial and agonizingly warm, when Sherlock hoarsely requested to see John. He refused to say _the body_. John was more than that. The hand was still there when Sherlock felt unable to enter the morgue. It was still there when Mycroft hesitatingly offered him a single cigarette, which Sherlock refused because John would smell it on him and be disappointed. It was still there when Mycroft, silent and stony-faced, led him back to 221B.

Back then, the world was annoyingly bright. So stubbornly normal, as if nothing had happened. It was mocking them both, Sherlock and John, with garish advertisements, dreadful pop music and useless politics. The reality was sharp like a needle. Sherlock loathed it.

Apart from _John_, there was only one word on his mind, muttered like a desperate mantra in the rhythm of Sherlock's spinning yet sluggish thoughts.

_No._

The funeral was the first blurry moment Sherlock recalls. He knows the ground was sliding; he can recall Mrs. Hudson's sobs and Harry Watson's swollen reddened eyes. She smelled like alcohol and misery.

He remembers a wailing violin tune he kept hearing inside his mind, consuming him like a black hole. He knows that he was standing in the graveyard. Inside, he was falling.

Sherlock loses his weight. He is oddly sure of it. In a way, it pleases him – he diminishes, just like John. They can be two shadows together. He takes to eating only when he hears the voice asking him to do so.

Mrs. Hudson, or her doppelganger, or her shade, or something Sherlock cannot name brings him food. Sherlock doesn't even look at it. He is far more consumed by the random mugs and Chinese takeaways which keep appearing and disappearing.

One night, he wakes up from his uneasy sleep only to hear the footsteps. His mind from before supplies Sherlock with the necessary data: it is John climbing up the stairs to his bedroom after a night out with his army mates. Sherlock carefully gets up from the sofa and tiptoes to the door, anxious to see the darkened figure of his slightly drunk old friend.

He opens the door but the staircase looks gloomy and empty.

No footsteps. Sherlock can hear himself inhaling wheezily.

The night after that one, he sits in the kitchen, staring at the RAMC mug. It has appeared again. Sherlock reaches out in one swift movement and grabs it, afraid the mug will vanish the moment it comes in contact with his skin. He places one fingertip on the spot where John's mouth must have touched the surface. He feels a shiver, as if he forgot to close the window and the chilly wind invited itself to the flat and danced in the dusty kitchen. Suddenly, he realizes he has dropped the mug. Instead of breaking loudly into tiny pieces just like Sherlock's mind does, it floats calmly, like a half-forgotten maple leaf. Before it kisses the floor, the mug fades completely and disappears.

With his body still and mind blank, Sherlock sits in the cold kitchen until the dawn. He is not sure – these days, he cannot be – but later he deduces he must have been crying.

Once, when Sherlock gazes through the window as usual, he suddenly feels boneless. He melts, like this half-noticeable ice-cream he spotted on the kitchen table just moments earlier. Sherlock thinks that the time in his mind passes slower than outside. He cannot gauge how long he has been floating, feather-light but stony-hearted. With every blink, Sherlock sinks deeper.

'Hold on', whispers the voice. The sound lingers in the air like Sherlock's music and with the last final wave leaves him alone.

He is uncertain whether it is the night. It might be. He can see it is after dark, but nowadays, there is no line between the light and the shadows. Not anymore. Sherlock assumes it is the night, though, despite finding out that every clock tells him a different time.

He figures it doesn't matter.

More important is the fact that Sherlock hears John's heavy breathing. Nineteen inhales per minute. Sherlock knows it is his friend calming down after a nightmare.

Silently, he minces to the kitchen and prepares a cup of tea. Then, he leaves it on the doorstep of John's bedroom, comes back to the living room and plays his violin. He knows from experience that John finds it easier to fall asleep if he listens to soothing melodies.

Sherlock plays and plays and plays until Mrs. Hudson shows up and subtly directs him to sit on the coach. She delicately takes the bow from Sherlock's numb hand and puts it back on the table.

She sits with him for what seems like an eternity, reading aloud a novel. Sherlock clings to every syllable although usually he would delete the content of the book the moment Mrs. Hudson voiced it.

When she leaves, Sherlock starts talking to the skull again.

Everything floats. Sherlock believes that he can, too. Drifting must be slumberous if the universe keeps doing it all the time. Sherlock briefly considers trying it as well but this thought escapes him and disappears in the mist which surrounds 221B. He shrugs and lets himself to close his eyes. He never sees the world the way he used to see, anyway.

The mist is milky and smells like vanilla. It has accompanied Molly here, Sherlock thinks he remembers, but Molly must have left – he neither sees or hears her. It does not prove anything, of course. Not these days, when everything floats.

The mist stays.

It must be some time after dark again, Sherlock muses. He thinks the little gold dots he can spot are stars but then he realizes his eyes are closed.

'Sherlock', the voice summons him. He opens his eyes and lets himself be pulled towards the living room. He is numb.

All is dim and shadowy, like in Sherlock's mind, which supplies him with an elegant word from Mrs. Hudson's book, _caliginous. _The mist moves lazily like an eternal serpent.

He thinks that he hears the sound of somebody folding neatly a newspaper. It is startlingly close, as if the noise was lurking in the shadows and waiting for Sherlock the whole time.

'Sherlock', the voice repeats his name like a charm. He feels the pull again, the compelling gravitation. He comes closer, his legs unsteady. In the dark, he can see that somebody sits in John's chair. The mist and the night make it difficult for him to see clearly but it doesn't cross Sherlock's mind to switch on the lights. He can barely distinguish the familiar head and when he breaths in, there is a faint scent of the aftershave which Sherlock long stored in his Mind Palace, in a different life when nothing floated.

Sherlock carefully steps closer, as if he was a dancer and the floor was made from glass. Everything floats but he felts at ease. The world rarely stays solid these days. Sherlock welcomes the blur. He is a part of it.

It is a part of him.

The head moves slightly and the newspaper falls from the figure's hands. Sherlock cannot see whether it hits the ground because he stares into the long-gone, never-forgotten eyes. Even in the dark, they are blue like Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major.

'Sherlock', he hears his name whispered for the third time. Sherlock notices the person's lips move so it must be him who has just spoken.

Sherlock smiles. He knows the dark man in the chair. He thinks they have met before.

Sherlock keeps smiling and everything floats. The person chuckles warmly. Slowly, Sherlock whispers a name and raises his hand to touch him.

Even when he blinks, the world is a blur.


End file.
